Fairfax County Hosts the 2012 Communications Vehicle Rally
Fairfax County Department of Information Technology Radio Services Center is proud to host our 8th annual Communications Vehicle Rally on July 20th, 2012. You are invited to observe and participate in this communications interoperability exercise where we bring together communications and command units from federal, state and local public safety agencies to participate in interoperability exercises. This year’s rally will again be held at the Fairfax County Police Department’s driver training facility located at 3725 Stonecroft Blvd, Chantilly, VA.
Please visit www.Fairfaxcounty.gov/rally to register for the rally. When you visit the website, you will see a slideshow displaying a sampling of the vehicles that participated in last year’s event. On the day of the rally, Fairfax County DIT will replace the slideshow with streaming video of the actual event as it unfolds. For personnel who can not physically make it to the actual rally, you can still participate!
The Communications Vehicle Rally has three basic objectives:
1) Does the communications equipment work and is it programmed properly?
2) Do the personnel assigned to drive the vehicles know how to set up and operate the communications equipment?
3) Do the incident commanders, patrol supervisors, battalion chiefs, emergency managers, etc. know the capabilities of each of the vehicles so that they can utilize their capabilities to the fullest?
Simple objectives – but critical objectives: But another huge benefit of the rally is the opportunity for the first responders to network with their peers from other agencies and to see what new technologies are available in interoperable communications.
In conjunction with the rally, we will be offering training on selected topics revolving around communications. That training plan is under development at this time. When it is finalized, it will be posted on the website so that you can sign up for training.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at james.wadsworth@fairfaxcounty.gov.
